


The Powers that Be

by ab2fsycho



Series: Hold My Tea and Watch This [23]
Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Bunny came to his senses, Jack is explained a thing, M/M, Pitch made a new friend, Sandy is a boss, Secret Relationship, Tooth and North are cute, ah yeah, foreboding images, kind of freaked him out, sort of, still can't tag properly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:14:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ab2fsycho/pseuds/ab2fsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Guardians and Pitch may soon seek the help of an unnamed individual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Powers that Be

Jack was sitting by Pitch’s sleeping form when Sandy appeared within his sights. The little man was leading two familiar children over to him. Leaving Pitch to slumber, he smiled and walked over to them.

“Jack!” Jamie shouted happily.

“Jack Jack!” Sophie also squealed. 

Jack found himself being tackled to the ground by the two. He laughed as he sat up and hugged them, surprised at how big they’d gotten. He felt like Sophie was almost a head taller, but that was likely an exaggeration. Her clothing style had changed little: she still looked like she’d just thrown together an outfit by herself without any regards to what colors matched. And her hair was still wild and unkempt, which made her big green eyes seem all the brighter against her blonde hair. Jamie, on the other hand, had definitely grown taller.

“You guys are growing too fast!” Jack exclaimed. The thought was both sad and happy, and he tried not to think about how old they were now. Once they released him, all smiles and giggles, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

Jamie’s expression turned to one of concern as Sophie ran off in search of Bunny. “Mom’s really sick, so she sent us to stay with some friends. The doctors don’t know what it is, and a bunch of people in Burgess are catching it.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. Sickness. He wondered if this was a result of the plague spirits emerging. He didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t sure if he should tell Jamie about the end bringer. The kid had done a lot for the Guardians in the past, and knowledge of a world-wide catastrophe wouldn’t exactly be something an eleven or twelve-year-old should have on his mind. Jack realized hiding it was pointless, but he could at least try to soften the blow. So instead of bringing it up to Jamie, he asked, “Do your friends know you’re here?”

“Not really, no. I think North must’ve left a snow globe with Sophie again, because this was really her idea.”

“He would.”

Jamie and Jack chuckled a bit. Then Jamie gave Jack a curious look. “What happened to your hoody?”

Jack glanced down, wondering what Jamie was referring to. Then his eyes widened. Oh, he thought. He’d completely forgotten that Rin had infused the blue fabric with shadow, so the sweatshirt was mottled by the two colors now. How did he even begin to explain this to Jamie? He panicked a little. He’d tried to conceal the fact that he was with Pitch from his believers mainly because he didn’t want them to think he’d betrayed them. The Guardians knew he wasn’t a traitor (save for Bunny, at least), but that didn’t mean his believers would understand.

It was then that Sandy intervened and came to his rescue. He signed to Jack that he should tell Jamie about Pitch’s temporary allegiance with the Guardians to battle Pillan and the plague spirits, and some of the truth about their friendship. Jack worried about being that honest, but he trusted Sandy. Nodding, he turned back to Jamie. “Well, see, we might be preoccupied the next couple of weeks. Or days. I’m not sure. There’s a dragon—.”

“Dragons are cool! Have you seen that movie—?”

“Calm down, kiddo,” Jack said, Jamie’s enthusiasm making him loosen up a bit. “This dragon’s not so cool. I think he aims to start a war with us.” And now for the bombshell. “And Pitch is helping us.”

“Pitch is back?!” That shocked expression is exactly what Jack had expected.

“Not . . . necessarily—.”

“Come on, mate. Just tell him you’re dating the Boogeyman and get it over with!” Jack spun around to find Bunny leading Sophie around with a basket full of eggs. His face flushed and his breath caught in his throat as he stared horrified at the rabbit. Even Sandy looked shocked at what Bunny had said.

“What?” Jamie asked. Jack closed his eyes, a weight manifesting in his chest as he realized that Bunny may have chased away the first child to ever notice him. He was expecting to hear disappointment in his first believer’s tone at any moment. He covered his face with his hands. This was such a low blow, even for Bunny. Jack almost couldn’t believe the rabbit would do this to him. “Jack, what is he saying?” Jack couldn’t answer. He was too hurt.

“Look here, kid,” Bunny moved closer as dread poured through Jack’s body. “I think he’s an idiot. You can call him an idiot too, if you like. But it’s true. He and Pitch have gotten to be close friends and the Guardians condone it.”

“What?” Jack asked without thinking, looking up at Bunny in disbelief.

Bunny’s ears flattened guiltily against his head. “Kid, as long as Jack is here, Pitch isn’t going to hurt anyone. He knows that would upset Jack. He’s mainly fighting with us because of Jack. You don’t have to be afraid of him.”

“But . . .,” Jamie thought aloud. Jack still couldn’t look at him. He was still too busy wondering why Bunny was suddenly helping him. “Doesn’t he creep you out?”

The ridiculousness of the question made Jack laugh. Sandy smiled widely, looking between the two other Guardians. Bunny even cracked a smile. Of all the things Jamie could’ve asked about Pitch, he wanted to know if Jack was unnerved by him. Jack summoned the courage to turn around then, and found himself confronted by a confused believer. “Yeah, sometimes. But you get used to it.” Jack looked up, thinking. “Most of it.”

“But what about all the things Pitch did to you?” Jamie asked. Now that was a reasonable question that Jack wasn’t sure how to answer.

Bunny stepped closer so that he was standing beside Jack and Sandy while Sophie played with the basket of eggs he’d had. “Sometimes people do stupid things out of loneliness. We all get lonely. Even the Boogeyman.” Surely I must be dead, Jack thought. Bunny actually listened to me. But Jamie accepted the explanation. The faith the kid had in them astounded Jack.

After a moment Jamie ran after his sister, who was hoarding the basket of eggs. Sandy, Jack, and Bunny watched them for a moment. Then Jack turned to Bunny. “A while ago, you hated me.”

“You’re an idiot, but you can’t be that big an idiot. I never hated you,” Bunny grumbled, sounding like himself again. For a moment, Jack thought that Sandy’s dreamsand had destroyed the Bunny they knew.

“This is the first time you defended me, though. On this subject at least.”

“You’re a hardhead. No matter what, you’re going to do what you want.” Bunny glanced around, as if expecting Pitch to appear out of thin air. “I should’ve known that the Fearling thing wasn’t intentional, judging by the way the bloody bastard hovered over you after the monkey incident. But you can’t blame me for being mad.”

“Dude, I don’t even know what you mean by Fearling. I just know that that’s what Rin is, apparently.”

Bunny sighed, shaking his head as his brow furrowed. “One, I can’t believe you guys named it. Two, I forget how young you are. You never would’ve remembered the Great War.”

“Rin named himself. And what exactly was the Great War?”

Sandy tugged on Jack’s sleeve, then signed to him. His sand depicted a battle between the Guardians and Pitch, who led an army of what looked like lethargic men and . . . spirits was the only term Jack could come up with. He assumed they were Fearlings. In the end, the Guardians defeated Pitch and his army was vanquished. Pitch went into hiding. “This was hundreds of years before your time,” Bunny added. “The Guardians were newly chosen, and we were hardened by battle. In Pitch’s absence, we softened up quite a bit and lowered our defenses. I think that’s why Manny saw potential in you.”

Jack’s curiosity spiked. “Do you all know why he chose you?”

“Honestly, nobody ever knows Manny’s real reasons. All we can do is guess.”

Jack stared at Sandy’s images, counting not four, but eight heads. Alongside the Big Four, there was an old man with a staff and a book, a boy who looked to be Jack’s ‘age’ with a glowing spear, a similarly aged girl riding a goose, and a finely dressed woman. These four he did not recognize. “What happened to them?”

“Three of them are somewhere where we can’t find them, helping Manny defend the world in their own way.” Bunny walked away. “The fourth we don’t talk about.”



Pitch awoke to the sound of a screaming child. He smiled. That was a pleasant thought. Screaming children. Until he realized it was a happy scream. Then the thought wasn’t so pleasant at all and he started to get a headache. Dammit Sanderson, he found himself thinking. He knew that Guardian’s technique anywhere.

Sitting up, he found himself in one of the egg tunnels, one of very few dark places in the Warren. He assumed Jack had brought him there after he’d been knocked out. He smiled at the thought, then wondered where the boy had gone off to. Standing slowly, he dared to step out of the darkness.

He found himself being confronted by a little girl. After a moment, he recognized her. She was the little sister of the infernal believer who’d refused to stop believing in the Guardians. He glared at her as she chased a group of eggs, not expecting her to turn around and look at him. At first, he thought her gaze was fixed on something behind him. Pitch really couldn’t tell. Her hair was practically a mop that covered the majority of her face. When he realized that there was a remote possibility that she was looking at him, he sidestepped. Her head followed him. He sidestepped again. Sure enough, she continued looking at him with her mouth agape.

Pitch’s brow rose. “Jack?” he called out. Pitch felt a tremor of excitement at having a believer, but at the same time knew that the only way he could be seen would be if the individual feared him. This was also one of Jack’s believers. Jack wouldn’t appreciate Pitch scaring one of his believers. The girl still stared at Pitch. “Jack, it’s staring at me.”

Without warning, the child threw her arms up in the air and shouted. He thought she was about to run away, but she ran towards him. Was she . . . attacking him? Before he found out, he stepped into the tunnel and disappeared into the shadows. She followed, still shouting and searching the darkness for him. “Come out!” she shouted.

Pitch wasn’t exactly intimidated, but this was a first for him. He’d never had a child who feared him react to his presence quite like this. “Jack, please come get this child!”

Finally, the Guardian appeared, having ridden the wind to the scene. “Sophie?” he called into the tunnel, kneeling so that he was on the girl’s level.

“I chased away the Boogeyman!” she cried triumphantly, running out of the darkness and into Jack’s open arms.

He hugged her, picking her up off the ground and looking into the tunnel. “Did you, now?” Jack stared quizzically into the darkness. “Pitch, did she chase you away?”

Was that supposed to be a trick question? He tentatively answered, “Yes.”

Jack smiled at the girl then. “You did! Good job! You might wanna go help Bunny. He’s got a lot of eggs to paint.”

“Bunny!” she said happily as Jack lowered her to the ground and she ran off.

When he was sure she was gone, Pitch stepped out of the shadows. “That was not an everyday experience.”

“I’d say congratulations, you have a believer, but you look a little stricken. Are you scared of a four-year-old?”

Pitch glared at Jack, but the boy only smiled up at him. Jack’s mischievous grin only made his brow knit further. “There it is again.”

“There what is?” Jack asked through a small chuckle.

“That damnable facial expression that you refer to as ‘just a smile.’” This only succeeded in making Jack laugh more. “I thought I banished that look.”

“From your lair. Not the Warren.”

“A minor technicality,” he called. “Something’s wrong with that girl.”

“Knowing Jamie, he probably taught her to attack the things she feared to teach her not to be afraid.”

“That sort of thinking could get the girl injured. Fear is a necessary and natural part of survival.”

“Awww,” Jack crooned, giving Pitch an even more playful look.

And Pitch thought he loathed the last face. “Now what?”

“You’re acting all parental! It’s adorable.”

“Shut up, you,” Pitch grumbled half-heartedly, wrapping a possessive arm around Jack’s shoulders. Jack only chuckled more as Pitch pulled him into the darkness again. “Try not to leave my sight.”

“In case you need me to save you again? We may have switched places. You’re the one attracting all the trouble.”

“Don’t get cute. I need more rest, and you make a wonderful pillow.”

“I feel so used,” he joked. Pitch rolled his eyes.

“I thought I told you to shut up.”



“It feels good, no?”

“What?”

“Having your weapons back.”

Tooth glanced down at her swords, then smiled up at North. “Very good.”

North smiled, laughing as they stared past the globe at the bright yet silent moon. The Tooth Palace was functioning normally even without Tooth’s constant direction. She wondered how the others were doing, how Jack was fairing with Bunny and Pitch bickering over him. She hoped that Manny spoke to them soon. “Is a strange feeling.”

“Being at war again?” she asked.

“Mm,” he nodded in agreement. “It seemed easier when we knew our enemy’s face. We have name, we have species, but hardly a face.”

“Or even a voice,” Tooth agreed. “Does Manny expect us to fight Pillan alone?”

“Technically, we are not alone. We are Guardians,” North said. Then he added with a shrug, “Plus one.”

“Plus one,” she echoed. She thought of the shadows and the Nightmares Pitch commanded. “More like plus one times hundreds.”

“Tis true.” 

North stood up then, facing her. His lips quirked in a way she hadn’t seen them do in years. Tooth tilted her head to the side as she hovered before him. “What are you thinking about?”

“That I won’t get to do this again for a while.” He pulled her to him and planted a soft kiss on her lips. She hummed against his mouth, her wings stilling as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he held her up. His lips were sweet, his arms were strong, and she honestly missed having them around her when they were working too much to see each other. Their relationship was not a public one. It was as much their secret as they could keep it from the others. They liked it that way. When North pulled away, he whispered, “You’re still as beautiful as you were the night I met you.”

“You’re still one of the first and only people I would trust with my life,” she whispered back. 

Their foreheads touched and their eyes closed momentarily before they reluctantly pulled apart. As they did so, they turned back to the moon to find the light shining on the floor. Manny was here. North smiled wider, “Alright, Man in Moon. What is situation?”

An image appeared on the floor of a creature they had never seen in person. The shadow of a dragon was shown clawing its way out of the earth, breathing fire as its muzzle broke free of the ground. Before the dragon were the Guardians. Manny even included Pitch in the light show. North and Tooth stared in awed horror at the size of Pillan compared to them. He was huge. He was bigger than any of them might have feared. The beast’s body alone was larger than Jamie Bennett’s house.

“Who originally imprisoned him, Manny? Can they help us?” Tooth asked.

The shadows dissipated and reformed into a familiar shape of a finely dressed woman. A woman they recognized. “No one knows where she is,” North muttered. “But she caged him once. She can do it again. How do we find her?”

The answer should’ve been obvious to them. Tooth knew who to go to before Manny even showed an image of the Nightmare King.

**Author's Note:**

> If you can guess who is being introduced, shhh.
> 
> Not really, I can hardly contain myself. This is a section of Hold My Tea and Watch This that I've been dying to write.
> 
> The books heavily influenced my love for Christmas Cookie. Their first meeting made me squee . . . even though she was being pretty violent at the time and he was quite young. Still. I shipped THAT on first sight. Black Ice just kind of took me into a back alley and beat the shite out of me until I saw it their way.
> 
> Shut up Alex.
> 
> I've been a writing fool. This part excites me for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm not done giving Pitch feels. At least Bunny calmed his tits.
> 
> I think it's time I went to bed. My filter has fallen off.


End file.
